


Equinox

by dogtit



Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi, Spoilers for RWBY3, winter glynda and summer are the other maidens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5634043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtit/pseuds/dogtit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there’s a shiver down her spine. she attributes it to the changing seasons.</p><p>(she’s not wrong.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> this is quick messy and v stream of consciousness. completely unedited so i apologize for any mistakes

They have all existed together in a myriad contingent of lives, a pantheon of identities. They have been sisters and mothers, and acquaintances and friends. Lovers, often. Enemies, never. 

Winter is always the first to begin the cycle anew. She holds her mother’s hand with one while the other cradles her infant sister. She is only thirteen years old as Ivana Schnee whispers that she’s so sorry, so sorry for this burden, but that Winter must conceal this, hide it away. 

_Don’t let it show. You’ll be safer._

When Ivana Schnee dies Winter feels the slumbering power arc into her, a cold and patient wave of something she’s never ever felt before. She feels three different souls sighing at the edges of her hearing, can feel the weight of thousands of lives she’s never lived pressing on her shoulders. 

The only thing that keeps her together is that Weiss is wailing, fussy and indignant. She will never feel Ivana’s warmth; Winter stares at this wrinkled, red faced little child, and she knows. Father will never be warm; Mother is dead. 

Winter will give her sister anything she can. Everything.

–

Glynda Goodwitch shakes in front of Ozpin’s desk as he tells her the truth, as her palms begin to sweat around her books. She’s pale and clammy and full of a terrible secret, a power that blossomed in the final exam of the year and left her screaming from the sensational overload. 

Everything was so loud; everything was alive. The wood of her desk had burst into full bloom. The smell of flowers perfumed thick in her nose until it irritated her allergies enough to make it bleed. Chaos in the classroom; chaos in her head.

“You’re familiar with the Story of the Seasons, aren’t you, Miss Goodwitch?”

Glynda shivers in her chair, blood crusty and dry on her upper lip. She has no time for fairytales when her education is on the line. “Yes? Sir? Am I, am I being expelled? I don’t–I don’t _know_  what happened, sir, I really don’t–I’m sorry–please, I’m sorry–”

Professor Ozpin leans on his arms with a grandfather’s patient smile; an old smile full of more wisdom. Glynda stares, her eyes burning and her power bubbling deep in her veins, ready to be unleashed. 

She knows him, deep in her marrow, and suddenly Glynda relaxes in her seat. 

“How would you like a job? I’ve been in need of an assistant, you know…”

–

Summer Rose is eighteen, and she’s dying in the bathroom. The hotflash had hit her as soon as she’d gotten into her dorm, and she ran for the bathroom as soon as she could. Sweat plasters her red hair to her face, and she rips at her cloak like the energy ripping in her skin. 

“Oh, god,” she moans, miserable. The toilet feels like ice and she presses against it. Her heart races in her chest and her make up is utterly _ruined_. Nothing has ever come close to this. 

This pressure, this _heat_ ; someone cries out in her head, mourning, but there are a dozen more calling out to her. Destiny, power. She grips the sides of her toilet and gags, her body pulling apart at the very seams. 

The porcelain cracks and breaks off in her hands. Water sloshes down to the tile and Summer squeaks, back pedaling. Her knees and stockings are soaked and when she looks in the mirror over the sink she sees a stranger. 

Her eyes are silver.

–

Amber feels it last, as the cycle dictates. This is like settling into a suit of armor, warm leather with a bite of chill stretching over her skin. It is an adjustment; it is destiny. Glynda Goodwitch and Ozpin of Beacon reached out to her three years before this and told her that there was a chance she could become something more than a Huntress. 

A Guardian. 

A Maiden.

–

They meet only once, the four of them. When the Brotherhood feels that it’s safe for them to know each other again, by name and by face. They’re from all corners of the world; Winter from Remnant, Amber from Mistral. Glynda’s family immigrated from Vacuo a decade ago and Summer is home grown and raised in Vale. They sit in Ozpin’s office, left in private, to talk. 

Winter has never met these women in her life, but she knows them. She once thought that Weiss would only have claim to all her heart could give–a Schnee can only spare so much love–but she’s proven wrong. 

Her heart swells in size and she knows that she could love each of them at once, in equal shares, in harmony. The way it always has been, always will be. They exchange scroll numbers and make small talk; no two Maidens of the generations are alike, so seeing stoic and caustic Spring beside firey Autumn is a juxtaposition Winter wasn’t expecting. 

“It’s a little funny, huh?” Summer, an alumni of Beacon, leans back in her chair and giggles. “For me and Winter. Kinda called it for us, didn’t it?”

Summer bumps her shoulder against Winter’s, her eyes merry. Winter, fifteen and awkward, fumbles with her fingers. “I…suppose. Mother said that Father named me in hopes that I would be a…not a disappointment. To him.” 

Glynda’s lips purse in silent disapproval. Summer takes her hand and Amber looks her up and down, sneers, “You sure proved that prick wrong, didn’t you? Disappointment my ass. What’s he got to be disappointed about?”

“I heard the General was planning on promoting you to a Specialist position,” Glynda adds, her voice pinched with venom but softened with something only the four of them will ever be able to hear. 

Summer breathes out in awe and her warm hand shakes Winter’s limp one. “So young! That’s incredible, Winter, you must be working so hard!” 

“I–yes?” Winter flushes beneath the weight of all three of their stares, so unused to their genuine praise. Weiss is full of hero worship and Father full of nothing, and Atlas only acknowledges excellence in excess. The promotion itself is enough of a statement. 

Amber takes her other hand, easily sliding her fingers between. She can feel rose petals tickling at her throat, and maple brushing against her ear; Winter sits, frozen, and stares across the room at Glynda. The bright green of her eyes go so very soft, like fresh moss, and the smile she receives is small but blinding. 

“You’re doing quite well for being so young. There may be hope for this world yet.”

“You’re damn right,” Amber mutters as Summer giggles, and Winter lets her eyes shut with a rare, wry grin.

–

The four of them are never together again. Not in the same room, at least. They keep up through calls and emails, but between their lives and schedules, it’s impossible to physically be in the same place at the same time.

Friends go missing. Babies are had. Summer isn’t married but when she corners Winter in a hotel room, eyes far away and breathless with longing and heartbreak, she might have been a little in love. Winter doesn’t know the particulars, doesn’t think she wants to know really, but she lets Summer’s fingers grip her collar and pull her into a sloppy, emotional kiss. 

“What am I doing,” Summer gasps, “what are _we_  doing?”

Winter grips her hands, tells her to stop. To sit. To think and wait and work through it. They lay side by side in the dark, staring at each other and Winter carries the secret in her chest with all the love she holds for Summer.

When Summer kisses her again, this time it’s softer. More assured. Winter lets the scorching heat melt her from the inside out, sighing. It’s not wrong; it might be wrong. Winter just knows that Summer gives so much of her heart away that she leaves none for herself; so she’ll let Summer be selfish with her. 

–

With Glynda, it’s more professional. They have coffee every now and then, when they can manage. They trade horror stories of the General and Ozpin, in good spirit. Sometimes, when dealing with a ridiculous man with too many responsibilities, it’s easier as a team. 

Winter holds her hand under tables, or they share the space inside Glynda’s study reading. Sometimes Winter dozes off and wakes up with her head tucked against Glynda’s shoulder, a black cape draped around her shoulders. 

They don’t need to be physical. Glynda grades papers and Winter offers snarking commentary. She knows Glynda is relaxed when the smell of spring flowers drifts into her nose, and when Glynda sneezes. 

Ah. Allergies.

–

There is no real pretense with Amber. Amber, who visits her in Atlas without invitation or prior notice, who kicks up her boots and plays with Weiss and makes herself at home when Father isn’t. She makes no secret of what she wants of Winter, flirting and flustering her. 

Genuine. Romantic. Fall and winter are so close to the other that it’s hard to separate sometimes. Spring and summer are the same; Winter knows that Summer is much more open with Glynda than she can be with Winter and that’s alright.

“Auntie Amber,” Weiss cheers from the top of the stairs, taking a running start and leaping from the top of the stairs. Amber is always there to catch her but Winter will never stop swearing under her breath and scolding her for being reckless. 

Amber spoils Weiss with brightness, tickling and giving her raspberries like an older sibling. Weiss kicks and squeals and they playfully spar, and when Weiss retires to bed Amber turns on Winter with a grin and grabs her, devours her. 

Amber texts her the most. The frozen element within the both of them doesn’t escape Winter, and she thinks, _yes, this is fate._

All three of the others, tied to her heart.

–

When Weiss is nine, Summer disappears. Not dead, but gone. Beacon has her officially listed as K.I.A but Glynda confirms what Amber and Winter know; Summer Rose is still alive. 

Alive. But gone.

–

Months before Weiss goes to beacon, Winter feels a shiver down her spine. A wrongness. Her breath clogs in her throat and she stumbles, feeling the connection she’s held with the others weaken. 

 _Weaken_.

Her fingers fumble over her scroll. 

_Amber?_

Amber never answers her. But she’s not dead. Not yet, not entirely, but something has been stolen and it will never be whole again. 

Summer turns to autumn. Winter has never feared the season’s changing, but she does now, for the omen it brings.

**Author's Note:**

> glynda is the oldest, then its amber, summer, and winter as the baby. things got messy when i remembered that there was a 2 year diff in between weiss and ruby which is 1000% my fault !!!


End file.
